Federalism and Political Participation

Since the founding of our nation, government has constantly been changing and developing as the United States has been evolving. What started out as thirteen colonies rules by another country expanded into fifty states of an independent country each with its own ideas and people to look out for. With this expanding country it was important that the government expand but also that the American people felt like they had a voice. Their voice can be heard in the varying types of participation of the political process at the national, state, and local level. Mona Field’s California Government and Politics Today and Ann O’M. Bowman’s State and Local Government: The Essentials both discuss the topics of the importance of state government, the levels and types of political participation done by Americans, and the increasing importance of state governments.

State government plays an integral part in the political system from allowing citizens to have multiple access points to influence policy to providing grants to improve communities. Local governments are a part of that state government which couldn’t function without the role that local communities contribute. State governments give their residents an opportunity to feel connected and influential in the policy making process. If America was only governed at the national level and not the federal level then the interests of the everyday citizen could not be heard. It would be more like a class system where only the elite had access to influence the policy makers. They also provide services that the federal government may not feel the need to implement yet or just to see how it works out within the states. “It was states that designed the first family leave legislation giving workers ti...

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...he ballot box” (Field 57). Constituents can do that through initiatives, referendums, and recalls. An initiative is when someone, usually an interest group, collects signatures in support of a proposed law to get it on the ballot for the upcoming election whether it be a statute or an amendment to the state constitution. A referendum has two types; the first type “allows voters to repeal a law passed by the legislature” (Field 58) if they have the correct amount of valid signatures within ninety days of the law being passed and the second type is when the legislature puts a proposed law on the ballot for people to vote on rather than voters petitioning to have it put on the ballot. Finally, a recall is when an elected official can be removed from office before the end of their term through a petition by the people for a special election to have the official removed.